Episode 303: I’m Talkin. . .Trinity

I’m talking episode 303 for February 4th, 2024.

This is Joel from the I’m talking microcast, where I share my thoughts on a topic that has piqued my interest this past week, this week, we’re talking Trinity.

So this year, or at least the beginning of where I’m dealing with church words as my word to discuss, I might as well just jump in the deep end here with the Trinity on previous microcast, I’ve, I’ve talked about God, I’ve talked about Jesus and who they are and what they mean.

Last week, for maybe the first time in in some depth, I talked about the Holy Spirit.

So now it’s time to tackle the Trinity.

Trinity is a word that is a church word.

That’s why I chose it.

It’s not one that you hear out in the world.

On the regular, you might hear some things occasionally, but not, but not really.

But just to kind of prove my point, I, I decided to look in a dictionary for the definition.

And of course, it talks about Trinity being a church word.

And then it says, or you could use it to indicate a group of three closely related persons or things.

And wow, does that miss the mark closely related as is.

Yeah, it doesn’t even do the word justice, as we see it as Christians.

And therein lies the challenge for those of us who call ourselves Christians.

Before I try to give you a definition, and that’s going to be a challenge for me.

But I just want to mention a few things.

One is that the Trinity is very difficult to understand.

And the good thing is that it’s something we can trust in, that it exists, and, and we can believe it.

And that’s part of our faith in God.

And it’s part of our, our Christian walk, even if we can’t fully explain it.

You know, I’ve often said, if, if we could fully explain God, then why would anyone want to know him?

I mean, we might be able to talk at us at a level that, that makes him attractive.

But to know a deity fully is to put them in a box, I think.

So while it’s difficult to understand, we must not disregard the importance of the Trinity as Christians.

It’s biblical.

It’s not something that’s made up.

You know what, I forgot to look it up.

But I seem to remember hearing that the actual word Trinity does not exist in the Bible.

But maybe different translations.

So there are some impossibilities that exist around the word Trinity.

And, and that’s something we have to accept as Christians.

And that’s something, if we are challenged on that topic, that we have to realize and accept that we won’t be able to fully convince anyone.

And, you know, the reality is, that’s not our job.

Our job is to live the Christian life.

Our job is to represent Jesus Christ.

Our job is to preach with words, with actions, with ideas, the saving ability of Jesus, the eternal life that we get through him.

Those are the Christian’s jobs.

And then the Holy Spirit gets to do the convicting.

That’s not up to us.

So we don’t have to be all that convincing, because we have the power of the Holy Spirit behind us to do that for us.

But in that, let’s talk about the Trinity.

These next few moments are not going to be all inclusive.

They might not even turn a light on for you.

It’s probably not going to be something that you go back to and say, here’s a great explanation I can use if someone asks me.

I hope it does a little bit of that for you.

But really, it’s just my thoughts as a Christian over time under different pastors and studying God’s Word.

So let’s just dive right in.

In Christian talk, Trinity as the church word is the fact that we serve a God that’s three in one.

So just breaking down the word Trinity and why it’s even used.

So tri- is a prefix meaning three.

You think of triangle, that’s three angles or three sides.

Either way you want to look at that, it’s still three.

And so that’s kind of the idea there.

And then the last part comes from the word unity, which is one.

So we have three in unity.

And it’s different in the fact that it’s not three different entities working in unity.

And yet it is.

It’s actually three distinct individuals.

That may not be the right word to use, but it’s three distinct things.

Three distinct spirits, people.

I’m having a hard time grasping the right word to use here.

But God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, there are three distinct entities.

That’s the word I want.

And yet they work in unison and not like mostly.

It’s not like sometimes they might disagree and two out of three get the vote.

So we go that direction.

No, this is complete unity.

They cannot disagree with one another.

And yet they have independent thought and independent actions and we interact with them differently.

Oftentimes we want to rank them.

We see a God, the Father, God, the Son, God, the Holy Spirit.

That’s often the way that we would refer to them.

And in that we end up saying, well, you know, God, God is the biggest.

And then Jesus is kind of next in line because he’s the Son and that’s just the way it works.

And the Holy Spirit is kind of third in line.

And it’s important, but he’s just there because whatever.

But that’s far from the truth.

None of the Trinity have characteristics that are not God.

When we talk about why God is God, and I’ll talk about those church words in the coming weeks, the same things can be said about Jesus.

The same things can be said about the Holy Spirit.

There is no distinction between their power and what they are capable of and their eternity.

It didn’t start with God the Father and then all of a sudden he decided he was lonely and made a couple of friends.

That’s not the way it works.

It is a unified entity with three distinct personalities and actually different functions.

But that’s because that’s how they’ve agreed to manifest themselves.

But the reality is it’s one.

And so now you are starting to grasp the impossibilities of describing the Trinity.

I’m going to say just a couple more thoughts.

One is the power of God is beyond all comprehension and we recognize that.

And so when it comes to discussing the Trinity, all three entities are ultimately important for who we are as Christians.

We recognize the work of all of them.

We know that Jesus died on the cross.

He became man, right?

And so he let go of some of his deity to be a man on the earth.

But does that make him less a part of the Trinity?

Does that lower his importance in the Trinity?

It does not.

And we know that without the Trinity, nothing happens that happens.

Nothing was created without the entire work of the Trinity.

In Genesis, we see that God rested from his work when they talk about the end of creation.

But that doesn’t eliminate the fact that Jesus and the Holy Spirit were right in the midst of that working hand in hand.

And you can hear pastors talk about how that works and why it works and how they did creation together.

But there’s no separation.

There’s no discussion of what to do next.

It’s not like a triune head that has to agree to move a given direction.

They are always together.

They are always moving in the same direction.

They always have the same plan.

They always have our best interest at heart.

They all will be in heaven and we will be with all of them for eternity.

And yet we get to see the work of each individually.

And we stand amazed and praise a God who has given us Jesus, the power of the Holy Spirit within us, and recognize that we don’t know him and yet he knows us and loves us through the power of the Trinity.

Until next week, this is Joel from the I’m Talking microcast.

Transcription by CastingWords